Tim Kubiak's Bowties and Business Podcast

Building Your Business with Alex Sanfilippo of Creating a Brand

August 25, 2020 Tim Kubiak ' Alex Sanfilippo Episode 34
Tim Kubiak's Bowties and Business Podcast
Building Your Business with Alex Sanfilippo of Creating a Brand
Show Notes Transcript

Today’s Guest Alex Sanfilippo and the topic is building your business. We'll talk about his entrepreneur's journey, his Top Rated Creating a Brand Podcast, and his journey into the world of Software as a Service. 

About Alex
He is the host of "Creating a Brand", a top 20 entrepreneurship podcast where he interviews successful leaders and experts on topics that matter to entrepreneurs who want to grow faster both personally and professionally while saving time and money in the process. 

Alex approaches business and life from a place of service and a dedication to making others more successful. Visit CreatingaBrand.com to join the Creating a Brand Community and to accelerate your success!  You can also find him on his socials at.

 

Alex’s Linked IN 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexsanfilippo/

 Creating a Brand Facebook Group

https://www.facebook.com/creatingabrand

 Alex’s Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/ajsanfilippo/

For Show Notes and additional information and links please visit
https://timkubiak.com/podcast


Hi, thanks for listening to bow ties and business. This is Tim Kubiak. And today's guest is Alex San Filippo 
Alex is the host of creating a brand of top 20 entrepreneurial ship podcast pre-interview successful leaders and experts on topics that matter to entrepreneurs and who want to grow their business both faster both personally and professionally while saving time and money in the process. This isn't a cask about entrepreneurship and a lot of other things so stay tuned in because one of the things is his journey as a business owner really started 12 when he saw the opportunity sell golf balls that were lost in the like across the street from his house to the golfers that were in the course hitting them in the like early on he figured out the one thing he was good at his business which is a wonderful gift in life Alex approaches business and life from a place of service and dedication to making others more successful visit creating a brand.com to join the community. And accelerate your success with that. You can also find them on a social. So Alex if you introduce yourself tell folks where they can find you and the little bit about your background for sure. Thanks so much for the introduction. I really appreciate it. So yeah, Tim everyone can find me at creating a brand.com. That is my main website. You can find the podcast there. You can find the online community there and anything involved in that's kind of like my Hub even my social my Social Links are on there and things like that because I used to tell people to look up Alex Sanfilippo and I was like, how on Earth do you spell that? You know, so I think Everyone can Spell creating a brand.com. So that's why I always tell everyone to go and a little about me. I got into podcasting a couple of years ago. And that's why I'm here today. It's something I enjoy I really love adding value people's lives and we'll get into some of the story today. 
I'm sure but I'm just excited to be here and thank you so much for having us a fantastic podcast. I'm really honored to to be spend time with you today Tim. Frankly. 
I'm stunned that you came on as a guest. So I'm really excited. Genuinely, so 
With that I talked about the golf ball story. So that's literally you know, my joke is I started selling hard candy on the school bus the kids that are mark up the paper batteries for video games you started with golf balls, but where did it go from there for you? Yeah, it's funny that you mention that I told one person that on a podcast one time and then he told 15 of his friends and then stuck ever since I've always had that story shared at some point, but it was it was one of those things that I realized at that moment. I actually wasn't good at video games growing up I was Good at sports wasn't great a great musician or anything like that. So my brothers were really good and I was like, I'm in an awkward place. I'm not good at any of these things. Everyone is good at it. But 
I realized when I started selling golf balls, I was actually good at business and I liked it and it wasn't just the act of it wasn't just the money. I was making it was actually the act of making money that I really enjoyed. So I kind of carried that into my teen years and into my early 20s, but it's very subconscious. I'd say I can't consider it to be something that you know, I wasn't making real like decisions on my life at that age. 

Just kind of like fell into more and more business related things that made sense for me. And yes, so into my early teen years. I got involved in some some tech startups in the and the real estate business working with Realtors and things like that helping them do some of their work on the computer because people weren't as I guess computer literate back then, you know, people were having some trouble with it. So I was able to help out and into my early twenties. It served me getting into the Aerospace industry as well. And it's beautiful and I'm pretty much my view of you is you've always been an entrepreneur. You've always pretty much worked for yourself, right? Yeah. 
Oh, yeah. I've had jobs of course along the way but yes, I've always at least had the entrepreneurial mind in everything that I've done. 
It more and more people need that that's one of the things I'm convinced that were failing to teach younger people, right? Yes, 
you know, you're right, you know develop an app do something launch it, you know, it's I spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley. So it's fail fast fail forward kind of mentality. But you know, as long as you're learning from every little launch and not losing your shirt, I think you're better off. Yeah, I agree with that. I'm actually glad you mentioned that because I think it's very important. I think that we were in the world today that people are afraid to fail and it really shouldn't be that way. I think that younger kids in school. Should be taught to try something. If it doesn't turn into the next million-dollar idea or anything like that, you've never really goes anywhere the active exercising this side of your brain that we all have is really healthy for you. It helps you think creatively and get outside of your own box and I think that 
students there are fitting too much in that little mold and this is probably not where we want to go today, but I'm passionate about that side to share that there was a I'm glad you brought that up ya know and I'm happy to go wherever the conversation takes us. That's the one thing right? Yeah. 
Yo, where's natural? So no worries. 

One of the challenges for business people is work-life balance and I've heard you talk about the so before we get indirectly to things. That's one of the things you seem to have a pretty good grip on how do you balance being an entrepreneur running a business you're creating a brand and everything else you're doing with having a life. Yeah. 
It's a good question. First off. I haven't always had both there were times in my life where I was working 70 up to 70 hours a week. It wasn't always that but sometimes those working that much and it wasn't out of necessity. Acity, it was out of a drive that didn't need to be there and unhealthy drive if you will and I didn't leave time for anything else. I wasn't leaving time for friends. I was single that point my life. So I didn't have any relationships like romantic relationships. My friendships were just kind of suffering and I was just really focused on getting ahead if you will and it wasn't so later in life that I realized that I was really passing a lot of the meaningful parts of Life, by the way. I was just letting it go because really life has more meaning than just the work that we do and it's when we have that realization, I believe that we Art to create this balance and some people say the balance is impossible. But for me, I do believe it's possible to have the right mindset at the very least in whatever you're doing. So there's actually something that dr. Ivan misner says, he's the founder of be and I and he says be where your feet are be where your feet are and what that means to me is just wherever I am in that moment. I need to actually be there something I've been realizing more and more Tim is that when people are really big really engraved in their work. They're really onto something big they believe and they're hanging out with friends or family. Family, 
you can look in their eyes and tell that they're not actually there with you. They might physically be there but they're really not actually they're they're looking over you. They're looking past you they're looking into their mind about. Okay, how am I going to do this later on when I get back on the grind of what I'm doing and I find that the real problem with balance is that we're not able to be where our feet are any longer. We're always somewhere else in our phones are partially to blame but then the day it's something that each of us have to decide to do we have to say, you know what I'm going to retake control of my life and gain that balance by 
putting my phone away by closing the laptop. I'm making sure that whatever I'm around to have them in front of that. I'm actually there with them. I'm going to be where my feet are and when I really started to understand that that's when it really made a change for me. That's when I really started seeing my relationships Excel and do better and actually my business is started doing better as well because I disconnected from them when it was time to do that. And so for everyone were in a different place, some people are still working that 70-hour work week summer working 40 or less maybe but then the day wherever you are in that moment be there. So when you're on work be at work when with your family be with your family when you're out playing doing something. That you enjoy doing be there in that moment. I think that that's what's really served me well to create balance in my life. Yeah and with a cybersecurity in an IT background, I'll tell you I've gone through I hate to use the Buzz term digital detox, but I've spent the last nine months 
and literally one of my partners in my web people were chasing me because I didn't answer something on Saturday because I sat down with an old-fashioned book right near like you haven't answered in like four hours. I'm like did the world end the is the website down? Your phone didn't ring. So right in its matter of being present you talk about time blocking and I'm kind of jumping around from the thing here. But 
is that something that you're able to do to enable you to be more present? Yes, definitely. So I'm married. I've been married for seven years and I believe I've become a better and better husband every year and one of the ways I've been able to do that is by when I'm when I'm with my wife. She knows that okay, I were to get it right like we're going to hang out together and spend time together. Other 
and because of that I've been able to really use my calendar and time blocks. So she knows that there's certain hours of the day that I am focused on work and we both work from home. So if she walks in and starts want to have a conversation with me she knows. 
Oh, okay. It's 11:30 and in the morning, you know, 11:30. This is when he's really focused on this project every single dates in the calendar. I've blocked at that time. So the conversation isn't gonna you know be be where your feet are my feet are at that point really engraved in something serious work-related and she knows that we've made that really clear by setting that expectation so 
for me, too. I'm blocking is something simple like that saying? Hey, this is what I'm doing at this time. I'll have this time later that I'll devote to something else but making sure that you're really intentional with that. So I think that many of us we just want to go with the flow. I find 10 that we just gonna be like, oh well when the work comes in I'll handle it. It's much better to say this is an hour of when this is an hour block right here and our window where I'm going to only focus on work and if something, you know distraction comes in fine, but in the day when I'm doing is I'm focusing on worked on this time. And then later on say this is what I'm going to even take a break for lunch or this is what I'm going to just Shut everything off but making sure that you actually block out that time to do that is really important. 
And it also sets for me at least it sets an expectation of okay. I've got two hours to get this done. And then after that I'm going to spend some time with my friends and with my wife so I've got two hours to knock this out. If I'm going to give myself that deadline. I work a lot harder and a lot faster because I want it to be done 
so that when I do leave I can actually go be with those people and enjoy the time and again not being like I didn't get enough done today. But when you said that expectation in that time block for yourself for me again, this is helped a lot. 
It's nice and and you talk about time for yourself. So what is your relaxation time? Looks like the keeps your recharges it active. Is it passive you blend the both a little bit of both and I'll explain why again going back to me being married my wife enjoys watching movies with me. We don't do that a whole lot. But we watch movies every now and then me personally, that's not really how I how I'm wired. So for me, my relaxation time is I love health. I love Fitness. So I like to go out and get a good healthy meal. I work out every day. In the middle of the day and I work out outside. I mean, I'm Jackson Florida and yes some days it's a hundred degrees outside, but I'm still going to go for a run every single day and ago doing a completely outdoor workout. I love that. I love spending time in the beach with people and I'm not just a guy who laser on the beach actually. 
Most people make fun of me when they see this but I don't take a towel 
and I don't take a chair. I just lay down straight in the sand and 
I bring a couple toys, you know, like I'll bring a soccer ball cause I love soccer. I'll bring like paddleball all the type of you know, the toys it probably kids like to bring I just enjoy that stuff and that's how I really refresh. It Is by doing those things that's how I relax it's just me being active and I find that kind of bring it all back to business I make much better business decisions when I'm actually actively pursuing my way of relaxation and refreshing myself so I really prioritize this stuff over business at times because I find that my decisions are much better when I'm doing these things and studies show that's true right you can wear your 70 or a hundred hours a week, but if you not get in time away you lose perspective you lose the clarity so absolutely and I love the A idea not taking a towel, right if I could yeah throwing up on the beach and sandals with with some things to play with and other people to find new stuff. That doesn't sound so bad people always like you're just laying down this and I'm like, yeah, we're all going to get Sandy anyway, right might as well just embrace it. So unless they no longer. There you go. 
That's good. 
Have you found your time between personal and business 
socially has collapsed in recent years at all. 
Yeah, I would I would say a little bit actually as I get closer and closer to what I feel is real purposeful and meaningful work for myself. I actually find that the people that I spend time with and that are really meaningful to me are in similar forms of business or people that I'm able to help or they're able to help me. So I find it kind of Blends together but it all comes back to making sure that we know like when to talk shop and when not to because we've all got those people that they can only talk business. There's nothing else, you know, so I'm really careful how much time I surround myself with people that are more. That mode all the time. So but the people that I'm around yeah, they actually I found that my personal life and my professional life. They a lot of them have really emerged closer together than I'd say they ever have before. Yeah, and one of the things I learned a few years back from a friend actually is he retired and he had given up most of his social life outside of some of his church activities and you know, we were in a world where we traveled a couple hundred days a year and when he retired he didn't know what to do because all his friends were his business friends in his customers all over. You know the world so he couldn't walk out his door and go down the street and see everybody. So it was a real adjustment because he had never drawn that line. It had just been you know, 35 years of hey, my friends are my business. Yeah. 
Yeah, that's a realization a lot of us. We a lot of us have and will have its you know, the thing is I love that we're talking about this because Tim I believe that some of the listeners say, they'll get to hear this and realize they need to invest in their own lives outside of work as well. And there's nothing wrong with them. If you have great relationship work, that's fantastic, but replicate that In your personal life in your neighborhood wherever you're at. It's been so meaningful for me. So I'm passionate about I'm really glad you brought that up. It's a really good point. Thank you. Let's talk a little bit about entrepreneurs and building the brand because that's really what you help people do love it. So 
one of the things I want to ask you should every company have a Blog this is such a good question and you know years ago, I probably would have answered it differently, but I'm going to say only if you have time to be active with it only if you have time to be active with because I find a lot of people they just assume they have to have a Blog and they don't have time for it. If you're only posting once a year. I don't think it's really that that good of a thing for you to be doing instead of be better off using that one piece of content making some sort of ebook or checklist or video something that you can use to actually help people with and for people who don't have time. Another great thing to do is get on guest posts. If you're like, you know what I can I can I can write a post once or twice a year just go and guest post find a great place to actually just share the information and to link back to yourself. I think that's a really great thing to be able to do so I think that we have to have something though on our websites that is a free educational element. So if it's not a Blog somehow some way you have to have free education. The the world of business is changing quite a bit many people especially younger Generations. They make buying decisions based off the free education they get from that company myself including this. I'm in my mid-thirties, but for me, I'm going to make a buying decision based off the free education that comes toward that example. I recently invested in SMS company to to use their service, but there was three of them Everyone recommended they're all really good. I went to the one and decide to sign up with the one that had the most free education where it was like their blog was really here's how you succeed. Here's how you do this talk to our service available all the time. Here's our people on podcast. We're just sharing that wisdom that knowledge and the other two are really silent. They didn't have a Blog they looked like they had a great product, but I couldn't find the free educational element. 
So for me I decide to skip it. So 
again, I don't think everyone needs a Blog and it's a long answer to your question. 
I don't think every needs a Blog but I do think there will need some form of educational element to all. For whatever that may be for them. So one of the things a lot of my clients and a lot of my listeners are 
sales people and their some of them own their own businesses and just to kind of set the set the stage. Some of them are a couple million dollar a year business re selling other people's products. 
Some of them are a couple hundred million dollars a year and they're representing Brands and their authorized for any advice for them and finding that middle space between the brand they sell and adding that expertise. Out to their customer set for the people, you know because it is it is a research learn buying decision kind of worked. 
Yeah, I think that the balance just has to be we have to remember the in the day that every business no matter what you're selling. 
It's all h2h. It's all human to human at one point. Right 
and I think that some of these bigger companies especially forget that we think we're business-to-business, 
you know, like we're selling to another company but then the day somebody is making that decision right? And I think that we can remember that put ourselves in their shoes and say okay 
if I'm new to this whatever this product might be then what does somebody need to know about it? Like, how do they Need to be able to like what do they need to see or know to be able to succeed with this? I think if you can start answering those questions and kind of bridge that gap between somebody who's just getting started with it and somebody who can succeed with it. Then your good and for some products might be really simple. Like if you're selling was just that you're selling some sort of data service, you know, like you're actually going to be storing people's data and how to do it efficiently and then just share it with just their company. I'm thinking a company like LastPass where they're keeping your passwords then making you helping you share it among your different people in your company or whatever might be that's kind of complex. So you want a lot education for that if you're selling a lawnmower and want to tell people how to start it and how to cut nice lines and their yard, right? That's a very different amount of Education that has to go into that because it's a much simpler service that you're trying to provide to people or that you're trying to sell to them. 
So 
really every company has to ask that for themselves, but they have to say how can I help the human at the other end succeed with what I'm doing and how much education needs to be involved in that? 
That's good advice with that. You know, one of the things that can be done as education is a podcast. You do one you have a very popular one. So once you talk about that for a second, yeah sure. So I'll talk about mine real quick and then we'll talk more about podcasting a gentle because I love this topic. I love blogging and that's how I got my start actually start with a faith-based Blog 
about seven years ago now so I started writing on my Christian faith that was really important to me and went multi-author with it. And then I found out that I really like odd casting because I could do it a lot more regularly. And it was pretty quick. I could just talk and I love to hear myself talk and I've been told I have a face for radio. So here I am so but my podcast creating a brand I launched it last year. Actually, it was 2019 and it was something I really wanted to do. I put a lot of time and energy to it because I wanted to help entrepreneurs that were really struggling to make that first or next step just on those topics are really important to them. So I launched and we saw a ton of success immediately built a community around it and it's just been it's been a lot. Lot of fun. It's been very fulfilling and just going to hear from the people and helping is as made it really worthwhile. 
So I've had a lot of fun with podcasting. It's been great. And yes podcasting. Can I would say that podcasting is good for for a lot of people. I don't know how deep you want to dive into that. But Tim we can definitely dive more into that if you'd like to so go a little bit deeper, right? Because the one thing you see is, you know, if you look there's a lot of Articles out there that says podcasts you can't monetize a podcast and that's not frankly 
I do this so I can talk to people like you right. It's 
Me to talk to business owners and learn in you know educate people along the way 
so not everything's about converting directly to cash. So I guess one of the things is you know, what can a podcast be used for how can you build your brand with it? Yeah. 
I'm glad you brought the monetization side because most people their very first thing is like I want to start a podcast because I want to make money and not saying that you won't or can't you definitely can but a lot of it really is top of the funnel. This is your educational piece. This is how people like to get information. I've seen some businesses. Is where they just they just talk about their business is all they talk about their short episodes there 10 15 minutes and she's like boom. Here's how you do this with our company. Here's how you do that. Here's how you do this. And that type of thing is really helpful. That's great to have but now if you're trying to actually grow your brand actually, I think that starting a podcast is one of the best things you can do right now. I say one of the best because there's one thing that I think is actually better than starting a podcast and that's being a guest on podcasts. I call that OPP other people's podcasts and it's something I've devoted a lot of time. To so I'm I don't know exactly where Madam around a hundred podcast. I've been on in the last this year I suppose and it's done really well for my business even better than my own podcast has and it's because if you can find the Right audience to speak to one you get to add value to them. But also if they're interested they're going to look you up, right and I think the people need to consider that that may be the right answer isn't I need to start my own? Maybe it's I just need to find other podcast to be a guest on because I've personally found that works extremely well and that really does help grow your brand. So that's how I found you. You and it's something that you were one of the co-creators out, right? Oh, yes pod match.com right match.com. Yeah, you know in I will give you Kudos man because you built a really cool app and I want you to talk a little bit about it and how people can use it and find gas and it's been revolutionary because I'd been working my LinkedIn profile on a 25 year old Professional Network to find people and I'll tell you I found a half a dozen really great people including yourself instead of the first week. So talk about what he did with that. That's 
Thank you for sharing. I appreciate that. I love Tom of this because it's my it's my baby right now, right? You know, I think we all feel that by so thank you. That means a lot to me. You just called my kid cute. So I appreciate it. Very cute. 
No, but pod match.com the whole idea was could we actually help podcast guests and hosts on each other? Could we do it in a quicker more efficient way and we do it through a matching service. It's literally the concept we took it from from dating website her from dating apps. We took we looked at hinge tender and a couple others what you said. How are they doing this and why aren't we doing this in the podcasting space? So it is the same idea when you register an account as a guest. Let's say you're an author of a book on productivity. It'll find productivity podcast host. That might be looking for a guest like you and vice versa. It'll flip on both sides and it's something that we're offering for free right now, which will really excited to do because at the end the day we really want to serve the podcasting industry and the idea for this actually came from from 
from just looking at what people's problems were we found a lot of people than the podcasting space asking for something like this. They didn't say it directly. I just wish I could find better guess and I just wish I could find more, 
you know hosting. I wish I could find more gas than more hosts. Like we had it people talk on both sides and we just offered a solution to that problem by creating pod match.com. It's been really cool. So Rai matching core is really fun and we're continuously improving it. But I appreciate you using I'm glad that we were actually able to make this interview happen through that's really cool. And I'll tell you one of the things I picked up sort of a new guy tip from somebody using the services when people reach out. I can see the words they're using identify themselves because it's after my initial profile. I went in looked at yours and a couple other people that had reached out and realized that there were words there that I hadn't chosen for my matches. There were more commonly being used. So that smart. I hope that everyone's like you honestly to that what that's good. Look most people that are on for entrepreneurs are going to figure it out. Right? 
So 
thanks for the plug on pod match that I appreciate that. Oh, no. I'm happy to it's great. 
You focus on people building a brand. So where the people most often miss the mark on that. Yeah, I think that in today's world. The biggest thing that people don't realize is the importance of MVP minimum viable product or service whatever it is that you're trying to do people wait for Perfection and I say wait for Perfection because it's impossible to gain but so many of us we just get stuck in this limbo mode of okay, 
this is nice. It's cool, but it doesn't look like apple.com or it doesn't look like nike.com and their social media is huge in my I don't have pictures like that yet. So I really can't get started. And I find people today we compare ourselves to these very very established Brands which you know 10, they've been around for 20 plus years some of these guys and obviously when you're a multi-billion dollar company would be doing a lot better than somebody with a few hundred dollar startup. Right? 
But the problem is we compare ourselves to that. We look at it and say well I can't start until I look more like this and 
I always tell people don't don't compare your day one to someone else's year 20 don't compare your day one to someone else's you're 20 now think that some of us want to do that we get caught in this perfectionist. 
Mindset the truth is whatever you have today. If you believe it adds value to people's lives. The best thing you can do is launch it where it is. And if it's not beautiful yet it will get there. But the thing is we all just have to learn. Okay. 
This is it's ready. It's not great yet. It's not beautiful yet. But I know that it's going to serve somebody. Well, I need to go ahead and launch today and I think that's one of the biggest problems I see is people just not ready to launch and they just kind of keep on a hold for far too long. I want, you know, do you see people worry about details that are ultimately irrelevant? Oh, yes. Yes hundred percent. Yeah, that seems a lot of people like sorry to cut you off there. I don't think a lot of people we look at we get involved in the business instead of working on the business. So we see the very small things. We're like, well, my calendar isn't really streamlined enough. I need to find a solution for that when it's such a small piece of what you do and I've been guilty of this. 
I'm a details guy. I'm a bit administrative and I can get caught up in the little the little things 
when you step back and you say okay. What is my goal again? What am I trying to do? Okay my calendar the how you know Oh how well it performs how pretty the email they get is when they what and they confirm a session that they want to do coaching wise with me that doesn't matter as much as how many actually get a client or how am I going to actually connect with them and I think that many of us. Yeah, we get stuck working in the business instead of on the business. We work in the business. Although it is important at times. It doesn't help grow it. That's when you're working on the business. It's going to really help grow it. 
Talk about working on the business 
helping others is something that truly drives you every everything. I've listened to that. You've done that's always come up as a topic is that always been the case for you? No, it hasn't actually in my early 20s. I was getting getting into some real estate. So I did a tech startup years ago with with real estate. So you might remember this there was there all over the place now, but those 365 degree towards you're looking at a home 
you can kind of like drag on the screen you can like look at the roof you can flip Over there behind you. So I helped develop the original Tech that was actually used to create that and so we are posting these things on the MLS. We had remember at one point. I was a 17 year old kid with three photographers and three editors working with me or something along those lines, but I had a full team we're working on it and then you know, I just became passionate real estate. So I saw it at 17 like as soon as I turn 18, I'm getting rental properties. And thankfully I had the money to do it. So I started doing that and then I saw a magazine I can't recall what magazine it was, but it had like a most successful under 30 list. Like 30 under 30 or something. They might be in Forbes, but basically showing like here are the guys and the ladies that are just crushing it in the world and I saw that and I was like that is going to be me like Alex and phillipos name will be on that list guaranteed. And so I had this whole mindset if I have to be successful half make money half make money have to succeed and 
I became a very lonely person a lot of what I'm sharing with you now is me on the other side of a mindset that I used to have. So I was well on my way and then you might remember this as well, but 
2006-2007 the economy really crashed and guy who thought he knew a lot real estate turns out I knew nothing about it because I could not see that coming and I had I went from being very well off to being extremely in debt with a lot of really bad Investments. And at that point I kind of hit rock bottom if you will and it was in that time where I found new friends people be around that were 
actually not just caring about money. They're actually caring about people that I decided that you know what I need to shift something and it's when I started saying this this this line that I used with everything I seek to be a A value not a person of profit. So when you think Alex and Philippe, I want you to think a person of value not a person of profit and ever since I'm one of those people around me started modeling that that's who I want to become an ever since then I've really decided helping others is my primary focus and the prophet I believe will follow that when I'm helping somebody else succeed and that's why I've devoted my entire life to I think it's such a positive thing, but it's also a way that your network when you do that expands because people come to you when they truly have a need and but they come back when they know that you can deliver because you've connected them in the right places. It's a brilliant approach. Yeah, I recommend it to everybody. I just I found to be so powerful and it's very fulfilling to like you're helping somebody and ends up helping you as well. I mean that's a win-win for me. Yeah, definitely. So you've built your own companies. You've done some startups You're Building Brands. Now, you're helping other people build Brands. How do you help people Define a culture? How do you live your culture inside your brand if you're the business owner. Yeah, the first thing that everything begins with a my mind is purpose. So the why behind the what, you know, there's something that we are going to do and that's the what but why are you doing? It is so important. I believe that all culture goes back to that question really establishing why you're doing something the reason for it and then you have to model you have to look at that every day. So for me, the only way I can keep myself off like off my craft and getting too involved in it is by remembering. Okay, Alex you're doing this because you were a person of value and so my personal goal over the next 10 years. Is help for thousand entrepreneurs create successful businesses. They want to see 4,000 people profiting because of me and if you do the math, let's just say I'm 30, I'm 32 right now. But let's just say I'm 30, that's more than 365 a year, which means there's more than one a day, which means I have to get really creative at some point to figure this out. Right 
but that's one of my goals and when I can sit back and actually remember that 
instead of just remembering, okay, like here's my got to do here's this here's this it really develops the right culture and mindset Within Myself and then thankfully everyone I work with it kind of just moves into Them because I remind them of the bigger vision and it's really important that so I think the verbiage that you use has to follow that why example of pod match we're starting this and my partner and he was calling the people users that are on there which they're technically users. Yes, 
but I started calling them members and then if they sign up for an affiliate link their partners and that is the verbage I used them like their members. They're in this with us. They're part of the team. They are members of the team. And if they said they want to be an affiliate which is part of the system. 
Then they are partners with us. There are people that are working with us and just simple Like this using verbage more like that that really connects back to your why is help me so much keep the right culture and mindset in everything that I do. 
That's a really nuanced answer to really engaging people and one of your things is I've heard you talked in the past about social media platforms and not being productive on them and your approach and creating a brand and I get the feeling it's the same in pod match right is you know, creating value every time somebody logs on. Can you talk about the importance of that? Yeah. 
I mean at the end of the day like somebody's Trust With their time whether it's through your social media through logging into your website, whatever it might be if somebody's trusting their time it needs to add value. I mean people are looking for something that's going to help them today and 
not this is the reason that you want to do is but people will leave really quick. If you're not helping him right people will unsubscribe people will not log back in you want to make sure you're adding that value right away and a good way to do this. You know, you talk about social media from its I'll mention this. This is another mistake that many entrepreneurs make we assume we have to be all places. 
So, you know, we talked about a Blog you have a block you have to have a podcast. Best gift ever YouTube channel you have to be on every social media platform, you know, all these different things that we all assume we need to do just aren't true. What you need to do is find where your tribe is the people that are going to really work with you. They're interested in you and do your best to impact them and add value every chance you get so an example is I was spreading myself too thin for a while. I assumed I need to be on every social platform. I spent a lot of time on all of them and the main one being at this point. This was like a year ago. I know tick-tocks kind of taking over but about a year ago more people come on Instagram. So I was like, okay I got it. We be on Instagram, but I found out that they weren't interested when I offered so it wasn't valuable to them. So I was like, well, why am I doing this? We're people who are really interested in what we're doing or they're on LinkedIn. So let me go add value on LinkedIn because they're actually receiving it well and saying this is helpful and instead of me doing anything on on Instagram and you know, a lot of people immediately like Alex, what are you doing? 
You need to post more Instagram is really growing fast, but my tribe wasn't there the people that I was actually adding value to helping weren't there, so I didn't need to be there either and I think that a lot of us assume we have to be everywhere. Or wherever is trending at that time, which isn't true. I do recommend give them all shop and find the ones where your people are that you're adding value to and just continue to pour into them press into them and do everything that you can to help without spreading yourself thin along the way and that's when something's been really helpful for me to really just add that value people's lives is by knowing where I need to be. 
So how does somebody find where the tribe is especially online? Yeah, a lot of it, you know online thankfully analytics are becoming a thing that are you can use anywhere now, right? I mean if you lost We talked about Twitter or sorry we talk about Instagram and get all mixed up. But basically there's a spot that you can see all your analytics and then you can also go to your website. So something very simple as if you use WordPress, you can use Google analytics which scares some people but if that scares you then use the built-in one. They have jet. It's called jetpack that we fact. Yeah weird present. It's fine. Honestly for this this type of data that I'm talking about that is more than enough. 
You can go there and see who's showing up where they're coming from if they're coming from social media can see which platform they're coming from and and that can tell you something. So if you Realize that you're posting 15 times a day on on let's just say Twitter or 20 times a day on Twitter and you don't get a single referral. No one clicks on anything. It's probably pretty low value at that point like you need to know that but if you're posting in the Facebook group and you've got a hundred people visiting every day because of that stop Twitter just leave it on auto pilot somehow, you know find where those Services I use buffer that automatically post things for me some still posting there but not going to look at it. But that Facebook group. I'm going to go spend intentional time there because it's actually helping those people so you can drive into analytics just about anywhere. Again, jetpack with WordPress for using that you're using the social media platforms. Most of them now have very easy ways to see the analytics of who's who's watching who's listening and then when you know your people like Tim, you're great about knowing who's listening to this podcast and I really admire that because not enough people do that. They assume. Oh my podcast is this I'm like, well, how do you know that? Well, 
you know, that's who I'm talking to I'm like, well, are you like you need to go look and then you need to actually talk to those people not somebody else because I found a lot of people they don't succeed because they're not talking to the you're will audience that they've earned and we're always have to adjust. I mean initially when I started creating a brand I thought my audience would be different than they are today, but I responded to who my audience is 
and who continues to build and the more I find that in home that end the better that been able been able to do with it. 
So your detail guy, you're obviously good at analytics. One of the things is what advice do you have on finding the right metrics whether it's on your website whether it's in your sales data, and the second part is Hey naked paralyzed by all the information that is available. That's that's a good question right there. I think that data overload is a real thing, right? Yeah. 
I think a lot of us can get stuck over there like really easily. But um, you know, I think that the best thing that I can remember to to do when it comes to data analytics has to have a balance we can get addicted to check that stuff every day and I've definitely been guilty of that like, you know, you're looking at your bank every day because it's coming in real time. If you're using something like stripe you can Literally hit swipe up and hit refresh and see more dollars rolling in sometimes sometimes not saying that's all the time. But you know good days you can though on good days you can but it's not healthy to look at because if it goes back to your why your big picture why you're doing something if it's not specifically and it shouldn't be to make that dollar continued to increase if you're looking at that more than you're helping somebody or doing something to add value. Then you're doing yourself a disservice you're taking time that you can be using and honestly, you know, it's like it's like I say this when you go to a gym I always liked that guy who's just looking himself in the mirror. You're not getting any stronger. But look at yourself in the mirror, and I think that if we just continuously look at our analytics just to look at them. Then we're not doing ourselves. Any service we need to do is maybe even set a time and I've had to do that like once a week. I used to have a reminder saying go check the analytics and everything. I would dive in deep for about 3045 minutes and then I would write down what my action are based off of that. So I'm not like addicted to it or continuously. Look at I actually know okay, here's what they're telling me. Here's what I need to do. I'll go look at it again. Then a week later and and honestly by stepping on you like that. You can actually see results happening. But if you're to glue to it, it doesn't it's not really beneficial. We have to be willing to step away from that a little bit and just go after what we know we're supposed to be doing. How do you use those analytics? When you do take the time to look at them to determine content planning Direction strategy? Yeah. 
It's a great question. A lot of it just comes down to engagement over also did people engage with it? 
And did I hear anybody say anything about it sounds Some things people really comment on not just on social media people email and people will be in the community really start talking about it will create a lot of Buzz 
and it goes back to some reflection sit back. I've got white boards behind right now. I've got three of them and they're ones empty right now Chow is makes me so excited because I got a mastermind session coming up, you know, like a little a brainstorm something but um, all right down be like, okay everyone really like the question. What are you struggling with in business right now? That was a recent one. I posted simple. I didn't think much of it, but I asked the question. What do you struggle with in business right now and I had more responses. I've had to anything in months. So I was like, whoa. Okay, why were people talking about that? Okay, let me look at who was talking about it. Okay, how can I build more content around this and I'll try simple things like okay it was you know, I posted that at 3 o'clock on a Tuesday. So let me try posting something else at 3 o'clock on a Tuesday and see if it's the same engagement on a different topic. I'll just try that. It's like okay. No that didn't work but they really like the question. What are they struggling with? So how can I be able to create more content like that? And of course I will try to spin everything positively so the next week, but I tried to do or two weeks later I tried. What's really working well for you in business right now and it engage really well and people like the questions that had to do exactly their business and that's just again my tribe you might find something called different you post that question might get crickets right at the end the day it's again goes back to do, you know who's listening and what they're looking for. So for me, that's what I do with all that data that analytics I really sit down and think. 
Okay. 
Why did this do so well, was it the timing was it actually what the content was about was it the way that it was very engaging was that the right kind of question to pose you have To really sit down and think about these things and for me a lot of that's come back to not my own expertise, but I've had to go back and actually read about that. You know, I'll look for Content online. You can Google anything these days right? I'll see you. Okay, why do people like this question or other people asking this question? Where did this come from and look for for other like related topics to talk about and doing that has been really beneficial and that's what I do with with my data is I just try those different things 
nice. 
And so I'll admit I cheat I have two other people one of which is a data scientist that I was oh hey Al I'm thinking it done this and he's like no Tim. You're an idiot. This is the metric that matters. 
You know, I'm not I'm not the best at this data stuff like I am decent at it. But I do the same thing. I seek wise counsel with everything I do. I'm like, hey, can someone help me with what this means though? Like sometimes it's Google sometimes actually people. I'm like, can you explain what I should be doing with this? So it's actually good that you do that. I hope he's a little nicer to you sometimes but you know, he's generally a good Nick good guy. He kept me out of more fires and I care to admit over the years. So that's good. I love that 
you talked about what people were struggling with in business. How's the pandemic and everything going on change what you do in your business and what your clients are going through? Yeah. 
I mean it's been different for every industry. Right? 
I mean, it's been crazy. I've had some people that it was really bad for hurt their business really bad. I have many friends at lost jobs throughout this but a lot of them some of them mean the ones that have lost jobs. I had one particular be like this was the push. I 
Needed to finally press go on this business have been pushing off for so long like just been scared to do I've been so comfortable. I just couldn't do it. They lost their job. Now. 
They're launching something. I had one guy in particular is just talking to you last week about it. He is so excited about what he's doing now, like he's already making money. It's just been a couple months and his own business has been thinking about for years, but he just was always like I was just too comfortable. Like I never felt like I could pull the trigger and I was forced to do it. So in some ways it's been really beneficial for people what I've noticed from a market standpoint in general. Is that people need Need more free community style content during this time. They needed to like they were all sitting at home. Right? 
So we need a way to feel part of something really important for us to feel like okay, we're part of a tribe part of the community and then they're also looking for free educational element like again going to the free education people looking for a way to learn what they need to do to implement what they want to do or to try new business. They want to do it for free because they're everyone's working on a more tight budget if you will and so I had made some adjustments the creating a brand Community used to not be free. It used to be you pay to get in the Never. Inside of it was free. But now we switch the we flipped it. So we said okay, you know what like this was the first week is having like the whole thing is going to a free model and then everything inside that we previously had for free will now be paid and we flip that switch and actually did really well. We had a lot of people really appreciating it some great feedback from doing that. But that was one of those those pivots that we just knew we had to make from day one and I'm going to change a lot of the content the way people were consuming content the topics were talking about like it was funny at the beginning of April. I had a really big I guess episode coming out about public speaking not the right time to talk about something public speaking wise. I still haven't published. It won't come out for another three months is when it will actually be coming out. I had another one about actually going out networking huge interview. One of my biggest I've ever had. We pushed off for two more months and we talked about more things like how you can build a business inside how you can pivot your business how you can set yourself up for Success. We had to make those adjustments and transitions if we really wanted to be able to do well and so that's for me. That's what I've seen has happened. It also frees up a lot of my time. So we Match.com we started on March 10th 2019 and we launching the beta June 15th 2019. I mean three months and five days and it was we did good. We are I was excited about it. That's incredibly fast for development of a new site of a new app. Yeah. 
I mean it was a lean, you know lean SAS startup me and my partner he's a genius he can do a lot of the work we started off on these white boards and just went for it man. Like we worked hard but it's one of those things that this time. I think we all say someday, right? I think covid-19 is everyone someday so We just knew we had to take action. 
Well, it's better than just sitting there and being paralyzed by fear though. Yes, you're absolutely right. Yeah, you're a big fan of Feedly, right? Yeah. 
Yeah reading service. So what's three things that you read on Feedly not the fact that you use it but three things that are must reads for you. 
Yeah. 
So three three places, I subscribe to that are really good for me search engine Journal is a really cool really cool site. They post a lot of great stuff and I love Barking I love SEO that's always going to be like a deep passion of mine. So just getting to learn something new is always really interesting to me. That's one that I like. I'll flip it to get something totally different. Now. 
There's a website that I also subscribe to through Feedly called uncrate.com and 
it's like I think they used to call it gear for guys the change what it would it was basically just think all the coolest stuff you could ever like the coolest houses. You've ever seen the coolest boats the coolest cars anything amazing like they post on there like one or two things a day and all 
Is like all I just want to see what that looks like, you know like so I like that one. That's another one. That's really fun. And then the last one is as a lot of my podcasts are on there. So I liked not mine personally podcast has subscribe to some people just like to quickly see the topics that I like which are always something different but I've been really getting into especially during this time like how I can kind of up my health game a little bit like eating habits nutrition habits exercise and different things like that and more from a natural standpoint. So I know that's not actually like a certain website with those type of things. I'm looking for that Up in that feed that are important to me right now, but you following Trends and topics. So that makes a lot of sense, right? Yeah. 
Exactly. 
Yep, cool. You run a business. So the question I'm always wrestling with business owners with is is it better to be smaller and more profitable or to really reach for the brass ring and go for that hyperscale and hope it pays off any thoughts on that one. Yeah. 
I mean, that's a fine line right there. The that's a difference between a millionaire and billionaire right there. 
And unfortunately a lot of it has to do with luck and a lot of has to do with timing. It's a matter of you really understand what you're doing. So for me listen small and profitable is a fantastic place to be and I think that more people just need to be okay with that. We don't need to look at these big billionaires and people that are making just gobs of money like crazy amounts of money and compare ourselves to them. If you are living in a place that's really comfortable. It's enabling you to do what you feel like you are wanting to do with your life and your time that's fantastic. Don't compare yourself to someone else to be like, oh I knew my business. This big so I think many entrepreneurs we kind of think it's got to be huge as I want to be on the map like it all these different mindsets that go through our head about this type of thing. But really if you've got a small profitable business and it's working. Well, it's helping you it's helping your client. That's okay. Now, if you think you have something that you say, you know, what this this could be more it could help more people could serve more people. It could serve my family better and you really believe that in the timing is right then yes, I say go for it. I'm always careful to going on getting too many loans and things like that, but If we look at the the Amazon model Amazon didn't make money for the first 10 or 12 years or something like that. I mean they were millions and millions of dollars in debt and just driving themselves into that hole and then one day it flipped and that's what they always said would happen. But that was a really what it was lucky and the timing was absolutely could not have been better for them with the way that technology is just took off while that business was growing. But if you believe you have one of those you've got to be willing to take the risk, but again don't don't do it because you feel like you have to You would if you know that you have something that's really going to serve the world well, and you just know there's more to be done with it. So you just recently did an episode on your podcast and I forget the gentleman's name who wrote the book on Bezos and the shareholder letters. Does that tie into you know a can you complete the sentence for me and be can you tie that into that philosophy? Yeah, so you have the besos letter. That was Steve Anderson. Great episode really good. I mean that book was like I'm and I picked it up. I was just in shock. I'm like, I've always dreamed of like just meeting with Jeff besos am in conversation with them. This book was probably just as good as that, you know, like it was really a fascinating read Steve did a great job on it. So 
yeah, a lot of this came from that because I wanted to dive more into what they've been able to do and the end the day his Jeff Bezos mindset is not let's build the biggest company World. His mindset is a customer Obsession he Obsessed with his customers and everything they do is devoted to making customers have the best possible experience that they can a great example is people don't realize when you buy something from Amazon and it shows up you open the box whatever is in that box is easy to open. You don't need scissors. Normally 
you don't need to unwrap anything like, you know, you buy something from a store in your like, oh my gosh. I need scissors. I need to unwrap this. I don't need and how to get this plastic off. This thing their idea is no we want the customer be instantly satisfied when they get it and then having that mindset. Has been was drove them to be a bigger company. It wasn't we're going to be the biggest company in the world. He said no we're going to actually we're going to serve our customer the best way we can and see if that will scale and it has another thing that he talks about is letter to shareholders every year. He's talks about failure, which is something that we don't talk about enough. It was two years ago. I was reading his letter before I even read this book and he said in it if we don't make multiple multibillion-dollar mistakes, we will stop growing 
if that's a letter that people that are writing my paycheck and keeping me employed. Telling them I'm going to make multiple multi billion dollar mistakes. I'm like, why would he say this to these people but because he understands that in order to succeed he has to fail along the way to test things to try new things to be able to actually expand and grow the way they want to and so I mean, yeah, Jeff Bezos an Amazon fascinating we can all learn a lot from it whether we like Amazon or not. They've done a fantastic job from a business perspective they have and they've raised the level of expectations not just in the consumer space, but I've seen it in the business-to-business space over the last 20 years. I remember sitting in at my desk is a kid signing up for Amazon, you know for the first time and then now, you know Global telecom companies are expected to deliver on that same standard. It's changed everything. It really has. I mean, if you're not delivering something for free in two days people are like what I got to wait for days for this and have to pay for it, right? 
Yeah exactly. What do you mean I have to pay Freight 
get a little secret on Amazon you're paying for Freight, but they just roll it into the cost of what you're paying for what people love it. 
It's finally like I don't mind paying a couple of Four dollars a year in two days and I have to pay for shipping right? I'm doing air quotes there, but it's the truth of matter it is so I really appreciate the time tell everybody again, you know, what can they expect to find at, you know creating a brand and why should they go there and then talk about pod match one more time if you would too. Yeah. 
Sure. 
Thank you. Thank you again. So first off creating a brand.com. That's my Hub. That's where I do everything so you can find me you can find the podcast all that stuff there if you want a quick way to get there. You can just text the word. Mekt so 1904 to 998 999 to so again, that's 1904 to 998 999 to and protects the work connect their it'll actually just automatically connect you to the community there, which is completely free. I just if you're interested in talking to another entrepreneur not just me, but other people in the community, we're all there to help each other out and collaborate together to help each other succeed. So and then there's the podcast creating a brand podcast can find all that at creating a brand.com and then pod match if you're if you have a podcast or you want to be a guest on podcast. Out on match.com completely free a I will automatically connect you with the right people so you can start having great conversations. Like Tim and I are having today so but yeah, that's it. That's everything about me and I really appreciate time to this was awesome to be part of it was really good having you on I learned a ton which is 

Alex had such a great comment there at the end podcasting is like free coaching every day. We work with high-performance sales people and people that are aspiring to become top sales people 
within their companies if you're interested in learning more about that visit Tim Kubiak.com. There's an offer to sign up for a first free high-performance sales coaching session. It's a 60 Minute session pure sales coaching for wanting your must win game changer opportunity. Thanks for listening if you haven't already done, so please subscribe to the Podcast using your favorite service. If you don't get the weekly sales later newsletter go to Tim Kubiak.com sign up fat and get sales tips guidance and advice to help you accelerate your win compete harder and exit time-wasting opportunities box you all next week.